Date of Award

Document Type

Degree Name

Department

First Advisor

John Francis Federici

Second Advisor

Robert Benedict Barat

Third Advisor

Dale E. Gary

Fourth Advisor

James A. Harrington

Fifth Advisor

Richard Mendelsohn

Sixth Advisor

P. K. Swain

Abstract

The applications of terahertz (THz, 1 THz is 1012 cycles per second or 300 pm in wavelength) radiation are rapidly expanding. In particular, THz imaging is emerging as a powerful technique to spatially map a wide variety of objects with spectral features which are present for many materials in THz region. Objects buried within dielectric structures can also be imaged due to the transparency of most dielectrics in this regime. Unfortunately, the image quality in such applications is inherently influenced by the scattering introduced by the sample inhomogeneities and by the presence of barriers that reduces both the transmitted power and the spatial resolution in particular frequency components. For continued development in THz radiation imaging, a comprehensive understanding of the role of these factors on THz radiation propagation and detection is vital.

This dissertation focuses on the various aspects like scattering, attenuation, frequency filtering and waveguide propagation of THz radiation and its subsequent application to a stand-off THz interferometric imager under development. Using THz Time Domain spectroscopic set-up, the effect of scattering, guided THz propagation with loss and dispersion profile of hollow-core waveguides and various filtering structures are investigated. Interferometric detection scheme and subsequent agent identification is studied in detail using extensive simulation and modeling of various imaging system parameters.